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[Palilishcd by ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH, GSa Broadway, New York.] 

UNCONDITIONAL LOYALTY. 



BY H'W. BELLOWS, D.D. 



"And the Government shall be xipon his shoulder."— Isaiau ix. 6. 

This is a part of tlie famous passage which sacred liter- 
ature and the half-inspired music of Handel liave rendered so 
familiar in its application to the mission of the Messiah. In- 
separable as it has now become from Christ's person, its or- 
iginal reference, singular as the language may appear in such 
a connection, was to an earthly monarch. Isaiah was pre- 
dicting a king for Israel, who should be competent to free it 
from all its political and moral perplexities, and he described 
him in words not then esteemed extravagant or sacrilegious, 
whatever might be thought of them now. " For unto us a 
child is born ; unto us a Son is given ; and the government 
shall be upon his shoulder ; and his name shall be called Won- 
derful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the everlasting Father, 
the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and 
peace there shall be no end ; upon the throne of David and 
upon his kingdom, to order ii, and to establish it with judg- 
ment and with justice from henceforth even forever." 

It is instructive to bear in mind that this passage is, on 
Scriptural authority, applicable to human governors and to 
our Divine Master ; that the head of the Church and the 
head of the State, if not united in the same person, are 
spoken of in these solemn terms of dignity and respon- 
siblenesss, as if their duties had a similar signiticance, 
and their claims a similar, though not equal, importance. 
It is not, tlierefore, without reason that nations have used 
the most hallowed religious sanctions and symbols in 
consecrating rulers ; that they have ascribed a religious 
sanctity to a King's office, and employed phrases which, 
if literally untrue, were yet profoundly suggestive in de- 



UNCOXDITIONAL 



LOYALTY. *T3 A-*^ 



scribing the King as " reigning by divine right," and in- 
capable of doing wrong. We boast ourselves of having 
got beyond these politictil superstitions ; but if we have got 
beyond the profound truths they rudely covered, we have 
l)assed out of the sphere of safety, and lost the anchorage 
of all civil security. The head of a nation is a sacred per- 
son, representing, for the time he holds his office, the most 
valuable and solemn rights and duties of a people. " The 
Government" is "upon his shoulder" — and the Government 
is the mighty pillar that flistens in order and holds to safety 
the ten thousand varying interests, rights and obligations 
of a nation. File at the staple which God fastens to his 
own throne, in the oaths of office which make a man chief 
ruler of a people, and you loosen thoughtlessly every link in 
that chain of law and order, which binds society together. 
There is something in the Chief Magistrate of a people, infi- 
nitely more important than his personal qualities, his judg- 
ment, his intelligence, his rectitude. It is his office — his 
representative character as the National Head. He can truly 
say with Louis XIV., " The State — it is I. Dishonor me, 
and you disgrace the nation ! Weaken me, and you under- 
mine the country ! Speak or think lightly of my oath, my 
office, my place, and you cheapen yourselves, your institu- 
tions, your hopes and prospects." I know the attempted 
refinements with which a licentious Press, or a thoughtless 
j^ublic, attempt to evade their duty by distinguishing be- 
tween the man and his office, despising and abusing the 
one, while affecting to honor and respect the other. But 
practically — in times of revolution or war especially — there 
can be no distinction. The office is so much larger than the 
man, that any abuse directed at him, hits it in spite of the 
marksman. You cannot rudely assail the personal character 
or judgment of a Chief Magistrate witliout Aveakening 
public respect for the office he holds. This fact makes 
it of the utmost importance to select rulers whose char- 
acters and qualifications do not invite disrespect. But 
however carelessly nominated, once elected, they ought 
to be thenceforth free from the tongue of light criticism 
or coarse abuse, for their office-sake. I sincerely be- 
lieve that the free-and-easy tongue of our jieople in 
discussing the personal character and claims of our Chief 
Magistrates, while in office, during the last twenty years, has 
contributed greatly to the demoralization of the nation, has 
cheapened the standard of qualifications for the Presidency, 
has lowered and loosened the office itself, and is, at this time, 

'03; 



^0^ 



UNCONDITIONAL LOYALTY. 



23erhap>s, the chief clanger in our public affiiirs. If, at this 
moment, we all felt as we ought to feel, that the authority 
of the President of the United States was a sufficient rallying 
cry ; that he fully represented both the expressed or const?- 
tutional and the reserved rights of the people ; that his oath 
of office was solemnly binding, not only on him, but also on 
us for whom he took it ; that his will, in a time of civil war 
and universal public danger, was a will having an official 
right to our reverence and obedience, we should escape the 
only utterly irremediable danger by which we are threatened. 
To rally round the President — without question or dispute — 
is the first and most sacred duty of loyal citizens, when he 
announces, not that the Constitution merely, but that the 
National life and existence are in peril. He is the official 
judge of this — and if v\^e do not accept his testimony, we 
have nothing to trust to. Remember that his opinions are 
not personal but official; not matters of individual judgment, 
or taste, or party ; but resultants of the knowledge and 
counsel and wisdom of his constitutional advisers. That he 
speaks as the Government, and for the Government, with all 
the Avisdom and capacity the Government has ; that this 
Government is the only Government toe liave^ or can have^ lohile 
the 2yresent tenure of office holds out ; and that, however much 
wiser its successor may be, that Avill not help us now. The 
ship of state is held for two years more solely by this anchor. 
It may go to wreck and ruin if that anchor parts, even though 
a better one be forging for the next term of office. To waste 
this sacred season, when the nation is in a struggle of life 
and death, and the Government is the physician alone re- 
sponsible for applying the remedies for its recovery — with 
no possibility of calling in any other until too late — in abus- 
ing the competency, or weakening the authority and the 
means of restoration in the hands of the attending surgeon, 
is the height of thoughtless folly and the source of intinite 
danger. 

Do not mistake me as undertaking the defence of our pres- 
ent Administration on any party or personal grounds. I am 
only pleading the sacred cause of Government itself I regard 
all party predilections and schemes, at a moment like this, with 
imutterable sorrow and indignation. The country should have 
but one thought — the protection of the National life, and tlie 
upholding of the constituted authorities, who alone can legiti- 
mately wield the power and resources of the nation, to effioct 
our salvation. It is not the joolicy, but the strexctii of the 
Government that is to save us ; nor is it now this General or 



4 UNCONDITIONAL LOYALTY. 

that, this measure or that, this Cabinet officer or that — who 
either blocks our way or has power to open it. Our great dif- 
ficulty is the reluctance of the people to trust the Government 
with all the moral and political powers it requires, in order to 
wield the whole force of the nation in defence of its life. I 
do not wonder at this liesitation ; but it is nearly fatal. The 
people have been so long accustomed to look after their pri- 
vate rights, their personal liberties, their local interests, and 
have — in a time of peace-^acquainted themselves so little with 
the advantages derived from the National Government — 
though it lias unconsciously all the while been showering 
blessings on their regardless heads — that they continue in a 
time of civil war — when a desperate enemy is stabbing at 
the heart of the nation, the capital, and clutching at the 
nation's throat, the Mississippi river, and while all the great 
empires of the world are in ill-concealed sympathy with this 
domestic foe — discussing questions of sectional and local im- 
portance — watching tariffs and bank charters — fighting over 
petty offices, scowling on necessary measures for incarcerat- 
ing and arresting traitors, denying a proper legality to the 
suspension of habeas coiyus — and threatening to resist any 
law of conscription, necessary to secure the military force 
required to make good the place of our retiring levies. At 
this present hour the President of the United States could 
not leave the District of Columbia without being liable 
to arrest and imprisonment in a common jail. And for 
wdiat ? for shutting up in Lafjiyette, or Fort Henry, men 
who, before they went there, were spies of the enemy, and 
more dangerous each of them than a whole regiment in 
the field, "and who, the moment any clemency visits them, 
renew their old business and sow dissension and despair at 
home, and create hope and courage in Richmond ! And all 
this is sim]:>ly because the hotnest people of the United States 
do not yet feel that all the State Governments and all the 
city and toAvn Governments owe whatever is protecting and 
beneficent in them, to the overshadowing power and great- 
ness of the Federal or National Government ; that terror 
and suffering does not yet reach them, only because the 
Federal Government stands bleeding, but strong and reso- 
lute, between them and harm ; that'it is now fighting their 
battles, protecting their honor and prosperity ; doing, suffer- 
ing, and daring all things for their sakG ! The people seem 
to think the Tresident's, or the Government's strength^ may 
be impaired and they continue strong ; that their local. State, 
or sectional prosperity, and law and order, here and anywhere, 



UNCONDITIONAL LOYALTY. 5 

have no vital and necessary connection with the vigor and 
honor and power of the Federal authority. Alas ! what a 
terrible, and possibly what a fatal mistake ! Do you sup- 
pose that any body disloyal to the General Government is a 
friend to his own State ? Are you are not seeing what that 
view of local rights, which makes the States jealous enemies 
of the ISTational Government, has brought upon the Southern 
members of this Union ? Have they not all, from being 
only angry watch-dogs and vv'orriers of the General Govern- 
ment, become open traitors to it ? And how far from simi- 
lar traitors are those who stand now, criticising, sneering at 
and resisting as far as they dare, every act of the Federal 
authorities which looks to vigorous defence of National sove- 
reignty — every measure that puts a thinly-disguised traitor 
or secessionist under arrest, or seeks to disembarrass the 
hands of the Government, full of immense responsibilities 
and cares, from the capering interference of local authorities ? 
These — not the skill and prowess of the enemy, not foreign 
intervention, not tlie want of good Generals or good states- 
men — are our real perils, — the divisions, the local interfer- 
ence, the partisan jealousies which prevent our whole people 
from uniting as one man in upholding the Government. The 
Government has men ; has, or can have, money ; has clear 
and recognized duties ; has, I believe, confidence in its own 
policy, and power and ability to conquer the enemy ; has 
none of the despondency and despair about military or naval 
proceedings — none of the internal strifes and divisions which 
afflict the people. What then does it want ? Nothing but 
the full consent and approbation of the people — nothing but 
the united loyalty and confidence of the people, trusting it 
with all the necessary discretion to carry into execution Avhat 
it judges to be essential to the very preservation of the Na- 
tional life. These discretionary powers Congress is slow to 
endorse, and not blamably, because Congress studies and 
must study the people, their moods, Avishes and prejudices, 
and these moods I do not so much condemn as lament. 
Why, after twenty months, is no act legalizing tlie suspen- 
sion" of habeas corpus yet passed ? I know it is not essential 
in a legal view, but how necessary for a moral effect. Why 
have the elections everywhere indicated a desire to invigo- 
rate State Governments and private securities and personal 
rights at such an untimely liour ? Why have thoughtless 
demagogues or selfish ])oliticians seized this moment, when 
Federal and National hiterests should rule supreme, to play 
upon the people's honest prejudices, by alarming them at the 



6 ' UXCONDITIONAL LOYALTY. 

alleged inroads on their local and personal liberties ? As if 
the man that broke down his neighbor's fence to procure a 
rail to fling to his neighbor's own child struggling in the 
Avater, was to be called to account for trespass while the boy 
was drowning ! Yet this is the precise spirit of local and 
sectional politicians, seeking to make their political fortunes 
out of the National distress, as many wretched traders are 
doing out of the National treasury. It is not one party, or 
another that is doing this, but many in all. Thousands wlio 
helped to put the President in office, are among these local 
and un-national destroyers of the country's life — assailing the 
Government they made, because circumstances have not al- 
lowed it to carry out a programme made for peace, and not 
for civil war. 

I repeat — for it is necessary — that T am very well aware 
of the specious grounds on which those who choose to assail 
tlie Government, at a time like this, rest their disloyal be- 
havior. They make tlie very plea the rebels made when they 
attempted to burn down the national temple — a violated 
Constitution. They are great sticklers for the letter of the 
Constitution. They remind one of the enemies of our Sa- 
viour, who were always flinging in his blessed face the au- 
thority of the Mosaic law. He could save no life on the 
Sabbath-day, because the Mosaic Constitution forbade it ! 
He could pluck no corn for his starving disciples, because 
the Mosaic Constitution made no provision for that! He 
could protect and shelter no penitent sinner, because the 
Mosaic Constitution condemned her to be stoned to death ! 
He could break no yoke of moral and spiritual ignorance 
any where, because the Mosaic Constitution was thus en- 
dangered ! In short, the Pharisees and Scribes and learned 
and acute doctors of the law, blocked the just starting 
chariot-wheels of the Gospel at every foot of its prog- 
ress, with some quotation or warning out of the Jewish 
Constitution ! And what would the Saviour of the world 
have been able to accomplish, if he had not flrmly and 
boldly taken the ground, "The letter killeth, the spirit 
maketh alive ! " If the Constitution of this country were 
Avhat the enemies of the Government make it out — the 
rebels' best argument, the slave's worst enemy; the sol- 
dier's greatest hindrance, the citizen's darkest foe, — if semi- 
rebels at home could justly And their chief arguments and 
protection in it, the sooner it were abandoned the better. 
But it is no such thing ! The friends, the true friends of 
the Constitution, arc those who love its spirit too well to 



UNCONDITIONAL LOYALTY. 7 

allow a few specks in its body to become the ruin of its 
soul. They treat it as a parent treats his child, who, to save - 
his life, sulFers the surgeon to cut oif a gangrenous finger 
or toe. If the Constitution of the United States were de- 
signed or fitted to obstruct the progress of public enlighten- 
ment, national ethics, and Christian civilization, it would be- 
come the curse of the nation. There is not a national charter 
in all history that has ever been permitted to do this. 
And is the Constitution of a free, democratic nation to 
be more wooden and incapable of enlightened moral inter- 
pretation than the law of the British Crown, or the French 
|r Prussian Empires ? It is absurd on the face of it. Be- 
"^'^use some of our fathers believed in cruel punishments, in 
he selling of even white apprentices into Slavery, in na- 
onal lotteries, and in other, now universally condemned 
nmoralities, are we tied to their errors and blindness, by 
sverence for their services ? Is the letter of the law to 
ver-ride its spirit, and that, too, in dealing with rebels and 
^aitors who are openly seeking to destroy our national 
v:istence? I yield to no man in reverence for law and 
rder ; nay, in respect, even, for the law's delays, and all the 
arious checks and balances by which constitutional govern- 
lent is secured. I believe in the immense importance of 
le proper distribution and segregation of the legislative, 
lulicial, administrative and executive functions of this Gov- 
•nment. No man can tell me any thing I do not now feel 
''. the value of method, order, precedent, rule, in political 
% ! But there are times when all these things must be 
ibordinated to the primal question of self-preservation. Plas 
nation less than the rights of an individual '? May it not, 
ust it not defend its own existence at all hazards '? Can 
ly laws, or charter, or constitution mean to rob it of tlie 
ghts of self-preservation ? Is the Constitution really 
olated when, under such a necessity, the powers of the 
i-esident are stretched beyond the ordinary reach of 
s office? I say the Constitution is preserved, as a life 
^ saved, by despising ordinary precautions and rules. 
^2ie Spanish law forbids a subject from laying hands, on 
any pretence, on an Infanta of Spain, under penalty of 
instant death. Did, then, the peasant who rushed into 
the palace and extinguished the flames that enveloped a 
royal princess, deserve to die? Did he break the law? 
Yes, in the letter. ISTo, in the spirit. And would 
he not have deserved to die a thousand deaths if he had 
reo-arded the letter of the law when his lieee ladv was in 



8 UNCONDITIONAL LOYALTY. 

instant peril of her life ? I is such fictitious violations of 
the Constitution as this, that Northern sympathizers with the 
rebelhon are now seeking^ to make grounds of accusation 
against the true friends of the Nation, and the protectors of 
its life — such violations as the inca" eration of 'spies, of cor- 
respondents with the rebel government ; inciters of revolt 
in border cities ; editors of rebel newspapers under some 
thin disguise ; insolent slave-drivers on the now free soil of 
the District of Columbia ; of men seeking to sow divisions 
and disloyalty in the army itself; to prevent the raising of 
fresh levies ; to weaken and bring into contempt the lawful 
power of the country. When it became necessary to rein- 
force Fort Taylor, a high military authority is said to have 
declared, that unless the act of habeas coiyus were suspended 
in the section of the State where the fort now lies, every 
National soldier could be arrested by the rebels, under civil 
j^rocess, and the power of the National Government be put 
at absolute defiance. But it was by some thought unconsti- 
tutional to suspend this act. Then it must be unconstitu- 
tional to uphold the Constitution, to oppose secession, or to 
put down rebellion. Let it be deemed unconstitutional, then, 
by those who hate Union and liberty ; it was none the lesa 
necessary — absolutely and unconditionally necessary — and 
the President, doubtless with some such view, signed the 
order for it with a full sense of his constitutional responsi- 
bility. But he is not yet justified in that act, or in any simi- 
lar acts, by the opposition. Would God, would America, 
would the Future, should we, justify him, if, higgling on the 
point, he had sacrificed the national spirit, honor, life and 
hopes to the weak and empty scruples of others about the 
letter of the law ? He would indeed have been a coward 
and a traitor to his country, if he had shrunk from that holy 
duty, of setting the law of national self-preservation above 
every other consideration, at that critical moment. Re- 
member that the value of a living ruler is that he is alive, 
and can accommodate action to circumstances. We might 
as well have presiding over this nation a Maelzel automaton, 
or Babbage's Calculator, wound uj) by the Constitution to 
strike certain foregone conclusions, as to have a living repre- 
sentative of the people — a man whose heart, conscience and 
will have their legitimate place in interpreting and applying the 
written law to the nation's exigencies — if these feeble notions 
of the absolute preeminence in a civil war of every doubt or 
silence or uncertainty in a Constitution made for j^eace, are to 
prevail over the necessities of immediate and decisive action. 



i 



^ y9 i 
UNCONDITIONAL LOYALTY. 9 

But, after all, no plea is so' specious and so dangerous 
among all those under which disloyalty seeks to conceal its 
flings, as that which attempts to distinguish between the 
Administration and the Government. It is perfectly respect- 
ful to the Government, I'or which it is ready to give life and 
treasure; but the Administration is imbecile, is false, is des- 
troying the liberties of the nation ; is without wisdom, or 
honesty, or success ! It is to be assailed, despised, resisted, 
and in every way obstructed, and this is all in the Avay of 
sound citizenship and in the exercise of inalienable rights — ■ 
in the character of true and loyal Americans ! It is very 
like the plea of men who respect the marital relation, but 
have no allegiance to the wife of their bosom ; or of those 
who advocate honesty as a general principle, but make an 
exception in dealing with their own creditors ! Practically, 
everybody knows that the President is, for two years or 
more to come, the sole lawful head of this I^^ation, and his 
Cabinet, men of his own choice, the arbiters of our national 
fate. Practically, what these men do or fail to do, through 
our furtherance or hindrance, settles the fate of this people 
for a generation, perhaps for ages to come. Practically, their 
support, encouragement and invigoration, is the only joossible 
method of putting forth our iVTational strength and ability. 
Practically, to bring them into suspicion, contempt and dis- 
trust, is the greatest injury and peril our cause can sufler ! 
Practically, the rebel Congress can have no allies more wor- 
thy encouragement and pecuniary support, than the men 
here who attempt to weaken the confidence of the nation in 
their sole executive representatives ; to bring the high offi- 
cers of the Government into disrespect and contempt ; to 
make foreign Powers think us led by pigmies, governed by 
imbeciles, counseled by knaves, divided among ourselves, and 
on the verge of despair ; our successes cheap, our prospects 
cloudy, our resources belittled, our zeal and determination 
dimmed and dwindled, our national will broken ; our Gov- 
ernment despised, sneered at and distrusted by its own child- 
ren. • Nor, alas ! is this wretched policy wholly confined to 
traitors. Loyal and honest men, in the pride of opinion un- 
wittingly perform the traitor's work. Faithless, impatient, 
superficial, mere partisans, or mere pettifoggers, or mere 
sectionalists, or mere mediocrities, they assail the Adminis- 
tration because the Administration does not take their advice, 
see things their way, jump to their conclusions, adopt their 
" isms," swallow their panacea, or force it down the throat 
of the country. 



10 UNCONDITIONAL LOYALTY. 

I was lately very much struck by the remark of an honest 
Kew England radical Abolitionist, who stated to me with an 
evident expectation that I should receive it as a j^roof of the 
President's total lack of intelligence, that a Committee of the 
leading representatives of his sect had just Avaited on the 
President, and had three hours of conversation with him ; 
and that they had no evidence that they had produced the 
least effect on his mind ! As they were all very excellent 
and eloquent gentlemen, of their school, I confess I felt a 
new increase of respect for the President's hrmness and 
many-sided wisdom ! I have too often had my own hasty 
views and wishes opposed and thwarted by the Administra- 
tion and high officers, not to have learned that it does not 
prove them to be wrong that they do not uniformly agree 
with even their honest and earnest advisers ! And, taking 
advantage of whatever name for frankness and simplicity, in 
speaking the unqualified convictions of my own mind, I may 
here enjoy, I solemnly declare in the interests of the nation 
and cause, that, witli more than ordinary opportunities of 
seeing and practically co-working with the Government, 
every month of study of our Administration has given me a 
greater estimate of its integrity, ability and fitness to meet 
the crisis ; a higher respect for the President ; a deeper per- 
suasion that faith and confidence in him would be repaid by 
full success in our cause. I believe that the very common 
opinion that intestine quarrels rend the Cabinet ; that no 
harmony of views or purposes j^revails ; that the high officers 
distrust, and are jealous of each other ; that they are chiefly 
animated by political ambition, or are sacrificing the country 
to their own self-seeking objects, is a most entire and a most 
pernicious mistake ; that the differences among them are 
honest and healthy differences, not touching vital points, and 
that their perplexities spring not from their own divisions, 
but from ours ; their lack of sharpness of policy to the 
blunted, because widely-extended, interests and wishes of a 
greatly scattered people. I believe no set of men ever lived, 
that were more idly, hastily and ignorantly judged and 
abused, than our existing Administration ; that they need 
only to be closely and personally known to be wholly re- 
spected ; and that any general disaffection or distrust is 
caused wholly by the poisonous malaria sent up from the 
marshes of public j)rejudice, from the foul-mouthed calum- 
nies of a portion of the public press, or the idle gossip of 
thoughtless story-tellers. When I think of the extent to 
which the falsest calumnies can go, without one particle of 



UNCONDITIONAL LOYALTY. IX 

truth to travel on — things I personally know to be not only 
untrue, but the precise reverse of truth — I am in despair of 
correcting public prejudice. To take an illustration, below 
that of a Cabinet officer, whom I will not criticise — no man 
in the whole country, for instance, has suffered greater 
wrongs, from the causes alleged, than General McDowell — 
a wise and good man, a patriot and brave soldier, simply un- 
fortunate, but despised and hated as a traitor and a drunkard 
by millions, many of whom are not worthy to loose his shoe- 
latchet. This man, who has been styled a drunkard, on the 
most incontestible evidence, by men and women of the high- 
est character, in my presence, I positively know never so 
much as touches a drop of intoxicating drink — is a total ab- 
stinent, and always has been so ! And I believe there are 
generals and Cabinet officers now under suspicion of drunk- 
enness and opium-eating, and fraud and falsehood — on testi- 
mony that would hang a man in many courts — who are as 
innocent of each and every one of these charges as the pur- 
est man in this assembly. 

It is a reckless way of discussing the personal character of 
public men, in the press and in popular assemblies, that has 
led to this atrocious depreciation of men, whose characters 
and reputation ought at this time to be under the shield of 
every patriotic citizen's allegiance and gratitude. I am per- 
suaded that it is a sacred duty to urge this point everywhere ; 
and I rejoice, that in the best faith in the world, I am able to 
begin a reform in this direction, at least in my own small 
sphere. I have from the beginning thought it my duty every- 
where to support the Government and to support the Admin- 
istration as the practical representative of the Government. 
I think it your duty, your religious duty — the duty of every 
loyal citizen, and that no duty is so urgent and imperative at 
this moment, as to restore a well-deserved confidence to our 
President and his advisers. If they did not merit it in their 
personal character and talents, I should still claim that they 
deserved it in their official position ! But I verily believe 
they merit it in their own persons, and only the more where 
they do not represent the partisan wishes of those of us who 
elected them. They came in a party-administration. Civil 
war has converted them into National patriots. The light- 
ning of God has touched them, and rendered them sacred. 
Yes ! Can we measure their trials, anxieties and difficulties 
■—the necessary sorrows and cares of their vast and compli- 
cated responsibility — and be willing to add to their burdens 
the needless grief of misinterpretation, slander, gossipping 



12 UNCONDITIONAL LOYALTY. 

criticism and personal abuse ? A more ungrateful public was 
never known than that which could willingly assail the per- 
sonal character of these slaves and conscripts of our public 
necessities — 'the present Government of the country ! Let 
us reform our ways altogether ; begin a new style of speecli 
about our public men in office. Let us support, encourage, 
cheer and trust the Government. It is all they need to carry 
us triumphantly through. 

Thus, brethren, do I commend to you the cause of uncon- 
ditional loyalty. I have pleaded it as a son pleading for a 
parent's life! Would to God that none needed this earnest 
pleading more than you do. I know your hearts, and how 
warmly and cordially as a congregation you ajiprove and 
practice upon these principles. I make you, then, the mis- 
sionaries of them, wherever you go, and with whomsoever 
you are conversant. Let our women and children become 
the propagandists of unconditional loyalty. The country 
needs not only the fealty of her sons, but of her daughters 
also. Sing the songs of patriotic devotion at your hearth- 
stones. Let your country have your earliest and your latest 
prayers. Frown on every syllable of distrust, of wavering, 
of disrespect, that pollutes the air you breathe. Require of 
all your friends to be first the friends of the nation ! Have 
nobody's love that does not love the country more ! Make 
a religion of patriotism. Let not the devotion of rebel fathers 
and mothers, of rebel sons and daughters, shame your luke- 
warmness, your selfishness, your coward fears. If error and 
treason can find such willing, uncomplaining martyrs and 
propagandists, what ought liberty, union, and lawful govern- 
ment to have ? It is this holy spirit of devotion on the part 
of the whole people, this jealous patriotism, this unconditional 
loyalty that can alone save the land. Let it not be your fault 
if from this hour it does not prevail in every home, in every 
heart, in every place of business, in every church throughout 
this nation — struggling, as it is, for the most sacred and xal- 
uable rights of our common humaaity, a lawful Government, 
and the right of Christianity and civilization to triumph over 
barbarism and Slavery. 



Edward O. Jenkiua, Printer and Stereoiyper, 20 North William Street, New York. 



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